MY STORY

On January 20th 2010 I departed for my Colorado adventure. Final destination is Telluride, CO. My previous employer closed our Boston office on October 31, 2009 and this seemed to be the most opportune time to do something different. My inspirations are two things really. They are both movies. First is "Into the Wild", a movie about a person who leaves his life behind to pursue a life in the Alaskan wilderness and along the way he meets people that shape his life. The second movie is "The Bucket List", a movie about two terminally ill men who escape a cancer ward with a wish list of to-do's before they die. The #1 item on the wish list is "Witness something truly majestic". My adventures are not exactly similar to these movies, but underlying themes and life changing perspectives are. As far as the location, I thank my sister for that. She lived in the beautiful & remote town of Telluride for five years and met Paul there. Their 1997 wedding was in Telluride (Trout Lake). Telluride is nestled in the dramatic Rocky Mountains of Southwest Colorado.

BLOG 101

If you are new to blogs so am I. Here is an intro. The home page http://mycoloradoadventure.blogspot.com/ has all the posts (the write ups) in order and they work so that most recent is at top of the order. i.e. Day 1, my first post/write-up, is on the bottom page of all the posts/write-ups. On the left side of the blog site there is a "Blog Archive" section where you can navigate to pick and choose year, month and then specific daily posts/write-ups. I wanted to share this in the event you are new to blogs.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Day 60 - 3/20/10 - Death of a Snowboard







'You bond with your snowboard and it becomes a part of you. It's a sad day when your time with it comes to an end.' - Me









R.I.P. Burton 2009 Custom X 159cm - 11/22/09 to 3/20/10

Today is Saturday March 20th 2010. Though disappointing, I have no regrets from this day. It snowed all day Friday so some time on the mountain was a must. I started off the day on a great note. Blueberry Blue Corn Pancakes was for breakfast; a delicious and filling whole meal of food (i.e. Old School). Then a gondola ride to the ski locker at my job so I could get all my gear for this powdery day.

My first few runs were warm up runs. I took some trails in Prospect Bowl that were groomed. They had some steep parts to get my adrenaline going, but also had some powder on the sides of the trails to get me ready for my hikes to the all-powder areas. After the warm up runs I was to have my first (since my arrival) try at Gold Hill. Gold Hill is compromised of 10 chutes. All are considered extreme terrain. When you look at the face of Gold Hill, it is intimidating. Chutes 3-10 are typically the last areas of the mountain to open after snow fall. They were not even open today because of avalanche control. Chutes 1&2 were open and I was excited. For my video of the day there are a couple time marks to note. At the 37 second mark, I fall. It did not hurt...there was too much powder around me. It was incredible and almost more of a hassle to fall because you would get buried in the powder. To that point, note the guy in the distance at the one minute mark. He is trying to get up in the powder. At the 1:07 mark he simply falls over because he cannot get his balance in the powder. Funny. With that, here is my video of the day:


Hope you enjoyed the video. Now, the bad news. My excitement created adrenaline and even more of an urge for adventure. This meant that I did not make wise choices on the mountain today. I was in a "jumping" mood and that coupled with the terrain I was crossing meant for some risk. Risk got the better of me and my snowboard today. Here's what happened:

Damage #1 - Pictured above left - Core gash. A gash straight on the bottom of the snowboard. This gash goes through the wax, the polyethylene, the fiberglass and into the core (wood) of the board. That is not good for snowboard health. Typically damage to the bottom of the board, if you go over a small rock, is to the wax and polyethylene. On Gold Hill there are some big rocks. I went over one and I remember the exact time I went over it. No video, but the damage was done. The repair would have been extensive and involved polyethylene material being melted into the gouge and bonded to the core. The polyethylene material would fill the gouge and harden with time. It could be done, but deep gouges sometimes allow moisture into the wooden core and if that happens any epoxy material will not last long.

Damage #2 - Pictured above right - A compressed edge. This is when you hit the steel edge on something so hard that the board near the edge compresses....or buckles. Were damage #1 not so deep, damage #2 remains the real dagger. This damage involves not only the core board itself, but also the metal edge. If you look closely in the picture (click on to enlarge) you can see the point of impact and how the board looks buckled. It's hard for me to watch this, but I do have a quick video of this damaging blow http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgYvlyj3OBM

I should also note that landing on that rock did not feel good. Legs, hip and neck were jolted and I can tell my next few days will not feel good.

I ran my snowboard to the shop as if it were taking it's last breaths. The shop was appropriately named BootDoctors and the guys I knew at the shop were not optimistic. Tony called me to tell me I would be better off buying a new board. Not what I wanted to hear. It had only been four months and I enjoyed my time with this board. It's been a heck of ride, I'll try not to shed a tear and goodbye to my snowboard. I'm sort of joking with the drama here, but damaging my board like I did was not fun. It will have to become a bench in my home now. Like I said in the beginning of this post, I have no regrets from this day. Life changing things can happen to anyone and at any one moment. This is hardly one of those moments, but I will miss my board.

Hope you are well and good night from Telluride.
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